Most of us have a combined frontend/backend system in the living room or a backend somewhere hidden. As we get more addicted to MythTV, the desire for additional frontends in other rooms in the house is increasing.

This page compares frontends that either run myth natively or speak the myth protocol. Another possibility is to use a UPnP client communicating with the backend's UPnP server. A page about these devices is at UPnP Client Info.

The goal of this page is to compare the options and make a choice for frontend hardware.

Attributes

Cost

An SD frontend shouldn't need a lot of hardware power. In fact, new video acceleration hardware (VDPAU or CrystalHD) can even allow you to use minimal frontend to play HD content. How cheap can you go and still play recordings from a backend?

Noise

Possible Sources

Cooling Fan(s)

Hard drive(s)

Optical Drive(s)

Solutions

Fanless designs

Some of the mini-itx systems are fanless.

Undervolt fans

Adding a resistor can slow and quiet fans, assuming they still cool adequately with reduced airflow

Driveless designs

Boot from network and mount root over NFS/iSCSI

Boot from a small solid state media (USB flash drive, SD card, CompactFlash card, etc) and mount root over NFS/iSCSI

Use large solid state media for booting and storing entire front end OS

No Optical Drive needed for front end

Complexity

How much pain and suffering required to get things set up and running?
How much 'fiddling around'?
Will Mythdora, knoppmyth or another all-inclusive distro 'just work'?
If network booting or other approaches used to reduce costs, how hard are they to configure?

I'm cheap, but I also value my time. If somethings going to save me $100 but take 20 extra hours to figure out it's not worth it to me...

Quality

Is there any trade-off in video or sound quality?

Usability

Is the system power borderline? Are menus slow?
This attribute is mainly aimed at MediaMVP, which loses points since kids, spouse, etc will need to learn another UI.

Some users have been plagued by a DMA controller bug (had no problems myself) [2]

Comments

The Minimyth project provides a relativly simple route to getting a frontend up and running based on a Mini-ITX board

XBox

The first generation XBox, not the XBox360.

Pros

Smaller than most PCs

Relatively inexpensive ($129 used, as of May 18, 2006)

Preconfigured binary disk images available on the internet

Remote available and easy to install

If softmodded, can retain ability to play XBox games

Can be modified to run Linux without installing a modchip via a Softmod

Cons

Hardware is mostly unmodifiable

Low RAM (64 MB, upgradeable to 128, but the process is risky and virtually impossible without professional help!)

Boot time is about 2 minutes

Not the smallest machine around

Recovery from hardware failure is more difficult than with other systems

DVD-ROM drive is sensitive to most CD-Rs, and some brands of DVD±R(W)/DLs.

Comments

Given the cost of the XBox, it makes a pretty decent Standard-Def frontend. The CPU has enough power to perform all the usual MythTV bells and whistles (OSD, Time-stretch, haven't tested Picture-In-Picture) with MPEG-2 video (haven't tested those features with MPEG-4, but Linux can run MPEG-4 in MythVideo). The machine is quite stable, but depending on how you go about installing MythTV, your software might not (some prefab'd Myth disk images are slightly unstable). One useful side-benefit is that should you find MythVideo to be unsatisfactory for one reason or another, an alternative can be run as XBox homebrew (the most common is XBMC). For $129 (with the price sure to fall eventually, with the release of the XBox 360), the XBox gives you a machine capable of all the (standard definition) MythTV features, and a few extra features as well.

The machine is mostly quiet, the loudest part being the fan, which is easily overridden by either controlling the fan speed (0.9x and below delivers noticeable changes), by replacing it with a quieter fan (if you're prepared to void your warranty), or simply by putting something on (the fan is easily drown out by ANYTHING, and can usually only be heard when everything else is silent). While the XBox has been criticized as the largest game console known to man, it's only roughly the size of a VCR, and shouldn't be too outrageously large to install in a home media center. The DVD-ROM drive is quite functional for commercially pressed discs, but (depending on the brand of your DVD-ROM drive) is not compatible with most CD-Rs, and some brands of DVD±R(W)s, including Dual Layer media. The XBox is also phenomenally easy to set up. One cord for network, one for A/V, one for power. If the user feels it necessary, additional peripherals can be installed through the XBox's USB ports (though an adapter will be required).

MediaMVP

Because the firmware is loaded via TFTP after every cold reboot, you don't have to worry about destroying something.

Built-in hardware MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 decoder.

Cons

Different UI than other MythTV front-ends.

On the American model the best you can get is S-Video.

SD: max 480i

Transcoding PC needed for DivX and other formats. Playback of video formats other than MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 is accomplished by transcoding the files in real-time using VLC or the software supplied by Hauppauge on a PC.

You can watch and delete your recordings, as well as view the upcoming recording schedule. You can also watch live tv on any available tuner. Additional functionality, such as scheduling of recordings, commercial skip, etc are not supported at this time (13/06-06).

MediaMVP Media Center - (mvpmc) is a media player for the Hauppauge MediaMVP. It replaces the factory firmware and supports playing audio and video from MythTV or ReplayTV digital video recorders, or via HTTP, NFS, and CIFS.

Needs the PCI expansion slot (~$30.00) and a PCI video card for S-Video out (nvidia & compiz work fine)

With the PCI expansion slot installed the unit must only be vertical (stand included) for thermal considerations. Looks like a PS2

Wireless? Working on it...

No built in optical drive. (external USB works fine)

Onboard video is weak (shares 16mb of system memory) so the PCI expansion and an add-on card are essential.

This box is available as the t5720 or the t5725. Hardware is identical. The t5720 ships with windows, the t5725 with a "Debian-based client". There are many CPU/Memory/Flash configurations. I've got the 1GHz/1gb/1gb version working without problems running a default Ubuntu 8.04 desktop installed to a 4GB USB stick. I paid $200 on eBay without the PCI expansion slot. I use the USB Keyspan Vista RF remote so the frontend can be hidden and does not require line of sight for remote control. My next steps include moving the log files to RAM [3] to preserve my solid state storage. The PCI expansion slot will accept a half-length, full-height PCI video card. I found a fanless PCI nvidia geforce 6200 card w/ s-video out for about $35.00. It handles mythtv easily and I can enable Compiz to get the nifty eye-candy. This is a stable frontend which I use in my living room daily. I've tried xboxes, macs and clunker PCs as frontends but the t5720 / t5725 has been the easiest to setup, quietest and most stable solution I've found.

HD

Meaning MPEG2 720i (interlaced) on the lower end, to h.264 1080p (progressive, full frame) on the high end. Not all of the mentioned systems may be able to output 1080p.

Please specify the performance for each build below.

Apple TV

The first generation Apple TV

Pros

Small

Quiet

Low Power usage

Built for home theater environment. HDMI and Component outputs, digital audio output, integrated IR receiver. There is even a hack for composite

Mac OS X can now be installed after tweaking and binaries of MythFrontend easily available